Regression to Mean
by odditycollector
Summary: The optimist believes we live in the best of possible worlds. The pragmatist has rigorous proof. Tim Drake is, as ever, a pragmatist.


**Regression to Mean**

**--**

_The optimist believes that we live in the best of possible worlds. The pragmatist has rigorous proof._

--

When Tim Drake is very young, he gets a hug. Dick Grayson bends down, offers a wide grin, and wraps his arms around Tim. The hug stretches for a few moments while the cameraman adjusts his settings, and then the older boy lets Tim go and stands up. Dick Grayson ruffles Tim's hair and, when Tim smiles up at him, jumps into a handstand. He bounces cheerfully from one hand to the other and backflips onto his feet, dropping a wink in Tim's direction before running to take his place in the show.

Tim's clearest, earliest memory is of that day: The Flying Graysons blazing red and green through the air, soaring brilliantly on unbreakable, poly-diamond weave rope.

When Tim is eight, he runs away to join the circus. He remains hidden in the shadows for three days, observing its rhythms and responsibilities, before volunteering himself to be whatever they need. It's Dick Grayson who takes him aside and explains kindly that, although circus living looks like fun, Tim must have a life and a family back home that needs him far more. Tim goes back to Gotham. His parents, busy preparing for a trip to Japan, haven't even noticed he was missing.

When Tim is eleven, Drake Industries is bought out by LexCorp. Lex Luthor, ever wary of potential outside his control, offers Tim an internship.

When Tim is sixteen, the Justice League deposes the Batman, Gotham City's frighteningly violent, self-appointed protector. The Batman astonishes everyone by turning out to be Bruce Wayne, useless society airhead. Pop-psychology talk-show hosts rhapsodize over the story of his poor, dead parents; Lex Luthor's company, guided by Tim's knowledge of his hometown, cuts through Wayne Enterprises' business interests like a scalpel.

That same year, Dick Grayson wins his second Olympic gold medal, thanks in part to the support of his family, a lifetime of hard practise, and LexCorp's remarkably generous sponsorship.

When Tim is eighteen, Lex Luthor is sworn in as the United States of America's newest elected President. Luthor hands the reigns of his multinational corporation to Tim Drake, a decision that professionally shocked journalists try to play for outraged sound-bytes. When they suggest that Tim might be too young to handle the responsibility, no one who has worked with Tim does anything but laugh.

Lex Luthor's administration becomes known for corporate interests, highly efficient social programs, and a grudging alliance with the JLA, who find themselves occasionally in need of Luthor's human bred genius. Which is why, three years into his first term as President, Lex Luthor is wiped out with the rest of the Justice League while rebuffing an alien attack. The Earth's other defenses take care of the remains of the hostile fleet; the only major casualties are Central Asia, South Europe, and Australia.

Tim spends most of his twenty-first year rebuilding a better world.

When Tim is twenty-two, President Pete Ross signs a law giving human-built defences priority over capes and metahumans in times of crisis. Ross is conflicted; Tim consoles him with the observation that, although Superman and Luthor were often at odds, what they both believed in more than anything was humanity's own potential. He doesn't mention that with the implosion of Wayne Enterprises and Kord Industries, LexCorp is guaranteed a virtual monopoly over the new military contracts. If he had, it would have only seemed an appropriate memorial.

When Tim is twenty-three, he saves the planet three times. Once by bluffing, when an alien war-queen arrives to test the average combat level of Earth's population, and Tim arranges for her to meet only an average selection of Kandorians. Once by accident, when he spills a pot of coffee into a computer system three days away from awakening into malevolent intelligence. And once with power, when he lays economic siege until the last country signs onto the Treaty of Aligned Nations, finally guaranteeing every citizen of the Earth a list of human rights such as liberty, health-care, education, and free-trade.

When Tim is twenty-four, an angry elder god births itself from a volcano, burying under a million tons of lava the ruins of a Mayan city and the crew working on a commercial shoot for LexCorp's personal-protection fashion line. Among the dead are the director, Andi Avara, two camera people, Nathan MacDonald and Brian Chin, and the commercial's central actor, Dick Grayson.

When Tim is twenty-five, LexCorp finishes inventing a time machine.

On his twenty-sixth birthday, Tim Drake steps into the past. He meets a twenty-six year old version of himself from a sideways timeline and, after a short conversation, convinces the other him to go back to the present, mission not complete. The alternate him is carrying a length of unbreakable, poly-diamond weave rope.

Tim is carrying cutting shears.

--


End file.
